Why does my TFS build waste time eventhough there

Question

We have a small setup of TFS server 2013 and running builds for a single project. For that project we only have a single build definition which has the Drops feature turned off. That is to say, This build does not copy output files to a drop folder. Yet we get this message every time we save the build definition:

This build wastes time and computer resources because your working folders include the team projects (... Project), which include a Drops folder. You should cloak the Drops folders. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=269693.

Normally I would comply and cloak the Drops folder. But that causes the build to hang at the very end (after building, testing and deploying has been done), right after "Resetting environment".

My question is, why does TFS warn us about having to cloak the Drops folder even though there really isn't one? Or is there and I am overlooking it completely?

Answer 1

It is an issue because that means TFS Build is downloading not only your source code but all the drops each time. Normally that is a waste, as it doesn't need to download the drops folder. In your case the Drops folder may be empty, but the warning logic isn't smart enough to realize that.

Answer 2

Found a workaround for this: First, add a cloak directive to your non-existent Drops folder:

Cloak | $[solution name]\Drops

save this, it won't complain. Queue a build, and let it fail because 'Drops is unmapped'. Go back to the Build definition, and remove your cloaked Drops folder, then save it. For me, I no longer get the warning. Hopefully this works for other folk!

Answer 3

I had the same problem and the solution above does not help since Dylan Smith does not explain how to stop the warning when there is no Drops folder (empty or not), which is the issue in the original question. My "hack" solution was to create dummy Drops folder in the root TFS project and cloak it.